I scaled the two Surfers about the same & I connected the background elements in order to make it look like two different frames from the same panning shot as the camera follows the Surfer and his arc. I was also trying - purposely trying - to pull the reader's eye across the spread on the top tier. So then, that's 5 different ways of reading the spread cuz I think it can be read in random order too. So that's 4 different possible paths for the reader's eye to follow - and I think they all "work" visually and narratively - on some level anyways - because I composed the text to be sort of like sound bytes that could be read in any order and still convey the melodramatic feeling I was after. And then I read the fourth or bottom tier left to right - and that's the end of the spread. My eyes essentially go backwards (think Chippendale's "read like a snake" sequencing for the transition from the second to third to fourth tier) and read the third tier backwards. Then the reader's eye swings back to the center and to the left side of the spread. If the spread is read across the top tier first and then across the second tier, would the tall panel disrupt the "across the spread" reading? I think it reads across the spread like a Sunday comic strip and I also think that the reader's eye could follow the double tall panel down the right edge of the right page and down to the third tier. The double-tall panel on the right-hand side of the spread sets up another interesting problem. Do you read the tall panel as panel 4 on the right hand page, or is the close-up with the Surfer on the third tier on the right hand page actually panel 4 and the tall panel is panel 5? The tall panel on the right hand side of the spread also provided the opportunity to work with that pesky arrangement when a tall panel seems to mess up the sequencing. From Stange Tales volume 2 - Silver Surfer copyright Marvel Comics I'd make the below image bigger - but I don't wanna get in trouble with Marvel. I read it correctly - one page at a time - and "incorrectly" across the spread, and well, I dunno, I think it works (reads) both ways. The top, bottom, middle, and sides all go full bleed. So, I played around with the sequencing, the narration, and also got rid of the margins surrounding the live area of each page. The sequencing could be an attempt to capture that contrast and the disorienting nature of it all. I also thought about trying to jump scale and show the contrast between the human-sized Silver Surfer & the vastness of space. Like, could I take away the center margin and compose a sequence that would still make sense if it was read "incorrectly" by going across the tiers on the spread - and still make sense if it was read one page at a time?įortunately, I was trying to draw outer space, so it felt like this was an advantage - no real specific landmarks to arrange - just stars and space. I thought it would be an interesting experiment if I could compose a spread that could be read both ways. But what happens when you lose the center margin that separates two fixed grids of the same size? Well, what happens is that the reader's eye goes across the top tier & reads the spread like a Sunday page comic strip - like stacked 4-panel strips that read across. That meant getting rid of the margins surrounding the 6 x 9-inch live area on each page. I decided that if I was going to use a 4-tiered gridded spread for the Surfer story - that I wanted to make the fixed panel size as big as possible. The top part of each square panel can be where the balloons or narration boxes are - and then what's left under the text is more of landscape proportion.) (6-panel grids, I think, are good for dialogue heavy sequences. The 3-tier, 6-panel grid generates squares and they can be trickier to compose with than wider landscape panels. I also prefer the shorter and wider panels that are created with a 4-tier, 8-panel grid. I was given only four pages and so choosing the 4-tier arrangement was mainly about squeezing in as many panels as possible & still having a balanced feel. I chose to use a fixed 4-tier arrangement that would give me the option of going double wide or double tall. Last year I wrote and drew a Silver Surfer story for Marvel's Strange Tales anthology. I also thought I'd try and write something more personal about how I like to use margins or not use margins when composing. This week we're going to look at how margins can determine timing and sequencing in North American comic books.
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